The Looking Glass

by Janet McNally

  “What do you think?” he asks.

  “Sure,” I say. “Let us take our repast at this charming shack!”

  Jack gives me a Look, but he puts his turn signal on and pulls into the parking lot.

  When I open the door, Pavlova hops out and starts peeing right away.

  “Yikes,” I say. “Thanks for waiting.” She looks up at me, pant-grinning, still peeing.

  Jack walks around the car to me. Pavlova stops peeing and gets super happy. He seems semi-charmed by it.

  “You save the picnic table,” Jack says. “I’ll get the food.”

  I salute him. “Aye, aye, Captain.”

  He ignores me, but there’s a tiny smile on his lips. “What do you want?”

  “Somehow I doubt they have a veggie burger,” I say. “Maybe just french fries? And also some kind of non-potato vegetable if they have one?”

  Jack nods. “I’ll do my best.”

  The table is weathered and gray. I sit down on one bench, facing out, and pull Pavlova up next to me. My tattoo itches, and when I look at it it’s a little red but it looks good. The blue-inked words are steady and true.

  A seagull sails by now, screaming softly. It lands near my feet. It takes a few steps forward, and then a few hops back.

  Another lands behind it. Then another. No one’s told them that there’s no sea for miles. They glide in, wings outstretched, hopping to a stop. Half a dozen, then a dozen more. Pavlova barks at them from the bench next to me, just one sharp bark, but they don’t seem to care. They keep coming, keep hopping, keep looking at me. Every once in a while, one lets out a stifled cry.

  “What is with you, birds?” I say through gritted teeth. “Not every fairy tale has an animal sidekick. And I’m not auditioning. Shoo!”

  Just before the whole scene turns into something out of a Hitchcock movie, I see Jack heading across the lawn from the restaurant. As he gets closer, the seagulls back away. This makes Pavlova brave, and she hops off the bench and runs toward them, barking, until they scatter.

  “Quite the fan club,” he says when he gets to the table.

  “Yeah,” I say. “It’s a thing lately.”

  “What is?”

  “Birds,” I say, and then I finish in my own head: and wolf-dogs and maybe-princesses. “They like me.”

  “Maybe you should see a doctor about that.” He hands me a drink cup. “Dr Pepper.”

  I smile. “Dr. Dre.”

  “Dr. Who.” Jack drops the bag of food on the table between us.

  “Doctor Zhivago.”

  “Anyway,” Jack says, sitting down, “they did have a veggie burger. Not so bad for a shack. And sweet potato fries, so I got you those. I hope they count as vegetables.”

  “They do,” I say. “Thanks.”

  We eat in silence for a few minutes. Mercifully, the seagulls stay away, begging for food at other tables, and no other animals (squirrels) (chipmunks) (wide-winged albatrosses) come to replace them.

  A little girl from the closest table starts to shadow Pavlova, who’s walking circles on her long leash, sniffing for scraps. The girl turns her face toward me. She has a purple barrette in her dark hair and round nearly black eyes.

  “You can pet her,” I say, smiling, “but she might lick you.”

  The girl says nothing, but she crouches down by Pav and runs her hand gently from my dog’s head to tail. Pav wiggles with happiness.

  “She’s a hit,” Jack says. He takes a sip of his soda.

  “She always is,” I say. “I mean, almost. Except with people who are overly fussy about their cars.”

  Jack shakes his head, smiling.

  “So,” he says. “Ballet.”

  I laugh without meaning to. I don’t know why—whether it’s because my ballet life already seems so far away, or because the word sounds strange coming out of Jack’s mouth. “What about it?”

  He shrugs. “What’s it like?”

  “It’s like flying,” I say, “but it hurts. It’s like making something really, really hard look completely effortless.” I point my toes without meaning to. “Have you ever heard what it sounds like? Dancing in pointe shoes?”

  Jack shakes his head.

  “It’s loud. Sounds like a herd of horses, clomping all over the stage. Pointe shoes aren’t soft.” I tap my sandal against the ground as if to demonstrate. “The music mostly covers it up. We’re supposed to look like we’re weightless.” I think of how free it feels, leaving the earth for seconds at a time. It’s like magic, or an illusion anyway. I wonder now if those two things are the same.

  He picks up a french fry. “Sadie said that you’ll only be going to school half days next year.”

  “Yeah. It’s a pain to figure it all out. Maria Mitchell School is flexible enough, but they’re not really used to this.” Pavlova begs for a fry at my feet, and I drop one down to her. “They haven’t had any other pre-professional dancers.” Julia had gone to Maria Mitchell too, but she quit when she went into Level Seven, just started working with a tutor right away. I just can’t imagine leaving school completely right now. If I did, I’d be admitting that it’s ballet and nothing but ballet for me, for now and forever.

  Pavlova puts her head on Jack’s knee and sighs. He rubs her ears a little, and she closes her eyes and sneezes.

  “Where did you get this creature?” he asks. “She’s like a cartoon.”

  I laugh. “She totally is. She came from a rescue group that brings dogs up from the south. I think she’s from Mississippi.”

  “She must have the dog version of a Southern accent.”

  “I’m sure she has a drawl,” I say. “Or at least a decent recipe for corn bread. She was already about three years old when we adopted her. I have no idea what her life was like before then.”

  Jack’s eyes fall on my wrist.

  “New ink?” he says.

  “It’s my only ink,” I say.

  “Well, yeah, I figured.” He touches my arm then, gently, just below my wrist. His touch is so unexpected that I breathe in sharply. “What’s the story?” he asks.

  What is the story, Sylvie?

  Well, I was lured in by a song my brother used to listen to, and then I saw Sleeping Beauty, and I followed her for blocks and . . .

  “It’s just something I had to do,” I say.

  He nods. “I get it.”

  We finish our food. He stands up then, crumpling the cardboard box from his fries. “You ready?”

  “Yep,” I say. I watch him head toward the garbage can.

  I gather my trash and toss it. Then I walk toward the car, giving the seagulls the side-eye until I’m inside and I shut the door.

  Track 3:

  I Don’t Want to Know

  A HALF HOUR LATER WE pull up in front of Rose’s house, which is tall and blue and boxy, with huge red rosebushes out front. Jack turns off the car.

  “This is it?” he asks.

  I look down at my phone, like I’m checking, but I already know this is the right house from the GPS. And, you know, because of the big silver 523 hung over the door.

  “Yep,” I say. I don’t move. I just keep looking at the house out the window. The sun illuminates a white awning over the porch, making it look like half the house is glowing.

  “Now what?” Jack says, his voice low.

  I slip my hand into my bag and feel the cover of the fairy tale book. Still there. I look at Jack.

  I take a deep breath and let it out slowly. “We go in,” I say.

  When I knock, it takes Rose about thirty seconds to appear. She opens the door wide and steps out onto the stoop. She looks at me and I look at her: the same beautiful Rose, her hair red and wild, freckles sprinkled in constellations over her ivory skin.

  “Sylvie,” she says. “What the hell are you doing here?” She pulls me into a hard hug before I can answer, so I just press my face into her bony shoulder and hug her back. When she lets me go it’s with the same kind of force. She flings me backward, then looks
right into my face.

  “What’s wrong?” she says.

  “Nothing,” I say, though of course that isn’t true. A hundred things are wrong. A million. “I need to ask you something.”

  “So you drove all the way here?”

  I nod. “Well, Jack did.”

  She turns toward Jack and squints a little. She’s suspicious. Then she looks back to me.

  “You do have a telephone, right?”

  “Yeah.” I look down at my purse. It’s in there, obviously. I don’t take it out.

  Rose is tapping her bare foot like an old woman in a movie, impatient and wary. I shift my weight on her doorstep.

  “Can we just come in?”

  “Fine,” Rose says. “Who’s this?”

  “This is Jack.” I gesture toward him. “Like I said.”

  “Hi,” he says. He steps forward to shake her hand.

  “You said his name,” she says. “I mean who is he?”

  “Oh. Do you remember my best friend, Sadie?” I say. “This is her brother. Their mom is Renata, who cooks for us sometimes.”

  At this, Rose finally smiles. “She made tart cherry pie for us the last time I was there.”

  “Exactly,” I say. I know Rose has a major sweet tooth. Cherry pie for the win.

  “So why is he here with you?” She’s squinting again.

  “He’s my ride,” I say.

  Rose lets out a frustrated sigh. She reaches out and ruffles my hair as if I’m six years old again, still following her and Julia around.

  “All right,” she says. “Come in.” She steps aside and we follow.

  Track 4:

  Edge of Seventeen

  ROSE’S APARTMENT IS ON THE first floor, all warm golden wood and wide windows. An orange striped cat walks over to us, tail held high as a flag. She bops my leg with her head. Pavlova is struggling to get out of my arms but I don’t let her.

  “That’s Ruth Bader Ginsburg,” Rose says to me. “RBG, this is Sylvie and Jack.”

  “Supremely pleased to meet you, Justice,” Jack says to the cat. He ignores my groan, bending down to run a hand across her back. “I’m a big fan.”

  Rose looks at me over the top of Jack’s head. She’s frowning just a bit, still suspicious, but I think she’s softening. He may win her over with his love of liberal Supreme Court justices.

  “Will she mind it if I let Pavlova down? She loves all animals. Maybe too much.”

  “Ruth can handle it.”

  I set Pav down on the floor. Her nails skitter across the wood as she dashes over to the cat. Who can certainly handle it, if handle it means leaping to the top of the closest bookcase, then looking down, hissing. Pavlova barks in frustration.

  Rose is unfazed.

  “Do you want something to drink?” she asks. “I have lemonade.” She pulls a glass pitcher from the refrigerator, and I can see lemon slices floating inside it.

  “Actual homemade lemonade?” I ask.

  Rose nods. “It’s part of my procrastination process. I have research I’m trying hard to avoid today.” She smiles. “Might as well squeeze a dozen lemons. And I didn’t even know I was going to have company.”

  She pours three glasses, and then motions over to her green velvet couch.

  “Sorry about the cat hair,” she says.

  I sit down. Pavlova hops up next to me. “It’s okay. Soon there will be dog hair too.”

  “Right,” Rose says. “Now tell me why the hell you’re here.”

  I look at Jack. There’s a hint of a smile on his face.

  “Um.” I take a deep breath. “I think you lied when I asked you about Julia.” I watch her face as I say this, but her expression doesn’t change. “I think—I know—she was here for a while.”

  I’m bluffing—I don’t really know that, exactly—but apparently I should be a poker player or a police detective, because Rose tells the truth immediately.

  “For a week and a half,” she says, nodding a little. “Last summer.” She pushes a lock of hair behind her ear. “Then she left in the goddamn middle of the night.”

  “I’m finding out that’s kind of what she does,” I say. “She didn’t say goodbye?”

  “No,” Rose says. “She was in rough shape when she was here.”

  “Using?” I ask this even though I’m afraid of the answer.

  “No.” Rose sounds sure when she says this, but then she frowns. “I don’t think so. I think I would have known.” She sounds less certain by the end.

  “I want to find her,” I say.

  “Why?” Rose’s voice is even-toned, a little flat.

  I look at Rose. “She’s my sister. I want to know she’s okay.” And, while I’m at it, I want to know why she sent me this book and I’m suddenly chasing Sleeping Beauty down West 14th Street.

  Rose’s mouth draws into a hard line. “Sylvie. Chances are she’s not okay. Have you considered that?”

  “Yes,” I say. (No. Not really.)

  “So be careful what you wish for.” She squints at me. “Does Aunt Elizabeth know where you are?”

  I look down at my bare feet and then back at Rose. “She’s in Paris with my dad.”

  “So she thinks you’re where?”

  “Um,” I say. “Dance camp in New Jersey? But I called and canceled. I—”

  Rose holds up a stop-sign hand. “You know what? I don’t want to know. The fewer details I have the better. Plausible deniability.” She sighs. “Do you have somewhere to stay?”

  I smile. I’ve got her. “The car?”

  “Jesus, kid.” She’s shaking her head. “The couch pulls out. Jack sleeps on the floor, and as far as your mom goes, I never saw you, okay? The last thing I need is to hear it from my mother.”

  “Thank you, Rose. I’ll make sure Aunt Katie doesn’t find out.”

  “You better,” she says.

  Later, Rose orders pizza and we eat it out on her patio, a small square of concrete with a picnic table and blue striped umbrella. Farther back is a yard full of shrubs and flowers. Next to us is a fence wound with fairy lights, glowing gold like a field of stars against the chain link.

  My tattoo is so itchy I can barely keep from scratching the hell out of it. I press my fingers to it, hoping the pressure will help. Then I let go.

  When I do, I realize that Rose is looking at my wrist.

  “Oh my god,” she says. “Is that real?”

  Instead of looking at my cousin, I look at the tattoo. It looks like Julia’s tattoo. My wrist looks like Julia’s wrist.

  “Yeah,” I say.

  “You’re sixteen, Syl!” Rose says. “What are you even doing?” She looks right into my eyes, then, and I don’t look away. My stomach feels hollow.

  “I don’t really know,” I say.

  Between her fingers, Rose holds my wrist, the one without a tattoo on it. She squeezes so hard it hurts.

  “Well, stop it,” she says. “Okay? Just stop it. I know you, okay? And you . . . you’re not her.”

  My heart sinks at the words.

  I’ve never heard anything so true in my life.

  Track 5:

  Say You Love Me

  WHEN WE FINISH EATING, ROSE gets up and walks toward the back fence to examine a trellis.

  “Come here,” she calls. I get up and Jack does too. When we get to Rose, we stop and look.

  “See that?” she asks. She’s pointing to a long narrow bud, mostly green but white at its end.

  “Yeah,” I say.

  Rose steps back. “Now watch it.”

  I look at her instead, because why the hell is she asking me to watch a plant? She widens her eyes, points toward the bud again in her bossy-pants way. I turn back.

  The three of us are crowded together in front of the trellis, looking at I don’t know what. Minutes pass. I’m standing so close to Jack I can feel the warmth of his shoulder through his T-shirt, and just as I’m about to pull away the bud starts to tremble.

  It twists itself open, un
raveling and flattening out like a small white parachute. It’s ruffled at the edges, pinwheel-shaped. So purely white it seems to glow. My heart drops out like an elevator in free fall—it’s happening again, this fox-and-bird/flora-and-fauna weirdness—and I turn to look at Jack.

  “Are you . . . seeing this?”

  He nods. He’s smiling, amazed.

  So I’m not losing my hold on reality, at least not at this moment.

  “They’re moonflowers,” Rose says. “Aren’t they amazing?”

  “Wait. Moonflowers?” I ask.

  “Little werewolf flora. They come out with the moon.”

  “So they just do this?” I ask.

  Rose nods. “Magic,” she says.

  “Science,” says Jack, nearly under his breath. His standard line. He wanders farther down the fence, inspecting the other buds wound tightly and waiting to open. When he gets far enough away, Rose leans toward me, puts her lips right up to my ear.

  “I didn’t bring you out here because it’s romantic,” she says, pulling me back over to the table. “Remember: Jack sleeps on the floor.” She sounds so fierce that I look at her, concerned, but she’s trying to hold back a smile. She’s messing with me.

  “You don’t have to worry about that,” I say. “He doesn’t even like me.”

  Rose shrugs. “That doesn’t always matter,” she says. She settles into her chair and picks up her glass. “Anyway, I’m pretty sure you’re wrong.”

  My phone rings then, a long ring like an old-fashioned rotary phone. The one I picked for my mother.

  “It’s my mom,” I say.

  Rose sets her glass on the table with a clink. “Well, answer.”

  “I can’t,” I say. “Not while you’re watching me.” The phone is still ringing, patiently, long trills that say, You can’t ignore me forever.

  Rose lets out a dramatic sigh. “Come on, Jack. Let’s give Sylvie the patio so she can continue her subterfuge.”

  He stands up and follows her. Just before she opens the door, she looks back in my direction.